page_title: History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula
section_title: History of the Jews in Yemen
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula / History of the Jews in Yemen
caption_attribution_description: العربية: خريطة اليمن. Dansk: Adens beliggenhed i Yemen. Ta'izz' beliggenhed i Yemen. English: Map of the modern state of Yemen. Map of Yemen. Map of Yemen, Saudi Arabia being north of it. Français&#160;: Carte du Yémen. Hrvatski: U Jemenu se govori 10 jezika od kojih su svi živi. Standardni arapski je nacionalni jezik. 日本語: イエメンの地図. മലയാളം: യെമനിന്റെ ഭൂപടം. Русский: Карта Йемена. Türkçe: Map of the modern state of Yemen.
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to Biblical times. The Arabian Peninsula is defined as including the present-day countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen politically and parts of Iraq and Jordan geographically.
  Jewish communities have lived mainly in present-day Iraq and Yemen, but most have migrated to Israel as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Currently, some Jewish communities develop in the Arabian peninsula as a result of expanding business and commerce as well as increased tolerance to Jews, such as in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
context_section_description: Local Yemenite Jewish traditions have traced the earliest settlement of Jews in this region back to the time of King Solomon. One explanation is that King Solomon sent Jewish merchant marines to Yemen to prospect for gold and silver with which to adorn the Temple in Jerusalem. Another legend places Jewish craftsmen in the region as requested by Bilqis, the Queen of Saba (Sheba). The immigration of the majority of Jews into Yemen appears to have taken place about the beginning of the 2nd century CE, although the province is mentioned neither by Josephus nor by the main books of the Jewish oral law, the Mishnah and Talmud.
  In 500 CE, at a time when the kingdom of Yemen extended into far into northern Arabia and included Mecca and Medina, the king Abu-Kariba Assad (of the Tobban tribe) converted to Judaism, as did several tribal leaders under him and probably a significant portion of the population. Pagans and Christians were not forced to convert, since Judaism teaches that there are righteous and godly people in all religions, who will be saved as such. It is interesting that the Book of Job, in the Bible, concerns a wholly righteous man identified in its first sentences as a pagan Arab of the land of Uz, probably north-central Arabia. The kingdom had a tumultuous history. In 520, Abu-Kariba's son or relative Zoran Yusuf Dhu-Nuwas, took over the kingdom, and, in revenge it is said for the persecution of Jews in Byzantium, instituted taxes on the Christian population and especially harshly treated Byzantine merchants. This spurred Christians to appeal to the Byzantine Emperor to invade, but he referred the request onto the Christian Ethiopian king who obliged, crushing the Jewish kingdom and causing many Jews to flee northward into central Arabia and Medina. They added to the majority of Jews already in Medina.
  The average Jewish population of Yemen for the first five centuries CE is said to have been about 3,000. The Jews were scattered throughout the country, but carried on an extensive commerce and thus succeeded in getting possession of many Jewish books. It seems that they were not deeply learned in Rabbinic traditions (although they were familiar with many midrashic interpretations of Torah passages), but they were certainly devout and observant Jews. Messianic hopes were strong and many messianic movements occurred down through the centuries. Maimonides, the great rabbi and thinker of the 12th century, leader of Egyptian Jewry, wrote his famous Letter to Yemen in response to desperate appeals from Jewish elders there about how to handle a madman who claimed to be the messiah and was wreaking serious harm on the community. Just within the nineteenth century there were three pseudo-messiahs: Shukr Kuhayl I (1861–65), Shukr Kuhayl II (1868–75), Joseph Abdallah (1888–93).
  Emigration from Yemen to Palestine – then ruled by the Ottomom Empire – began in 1881 and continued almost without interruption until 1914. It was during this time that about 10% of the Yemenite Jews left. Due to the changes in the Ottoman Empire citizens could move more freely and in 1869 travel was improved with the opening of the Suez Canal, which shorted the travel time from Yemen to the Holy Land. From 1881 to 1882 a few hundred Jews left Sanaa and several nearby settlements. This wave was followed by other Jews from central Yemen who continued to move into the Holy Land until 1914. The majority of these groups moved into Jerusalem and Jaffa. Before World War I there was another wave that began in 1906 and continued until 1914.
  The State of Israel airlifted most of Yemen's Jews to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet in 1949 and 1950 shortly after the end of the Israeli War of Independence. In February 2009, ten Yemeni Jews immigrated to Israel, and in July 2009, three families, or 16 people in total, followed suit. On October 31, 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that in June 2009, an estimated 350 Jews were left in Yemen, and by October 2009, 60 had emigrated to the United States, and 100 were considering following suit. The BBC estimated that 
caption: Map of the modern state of Yemen
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